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Bump's World - December 2015
December 22, 2015
There have been many formulas that try to measure a boat and its sails, therefore coming up with a time allowance to measure against other boats. The rules you might remember are IOR, IRC, IMS, ORC, etc. The most popular in numbers was IOR with about 2200 certificates in the early 1980s.
In 1977 I had just bought a C&C 25, "Banana Split”, it was yellow. Being the competitive guy I am, and having just moved to the yacht racing capital of the world, I decided to go racing. I was told by the honest yacht broker who sold me the boat that she was a proven winner.
I asked what do I need to do to race? I need to join MORC, Midget Ocean Racing Class. So I did, and they gave me a number, this was my rating. So I raced. I was coming in far behind. Sometimes the race committee asked me to take my own time, since they were tired of waiting for me. I sanded the bottom, practiced with my crew, bought new sails and read everything I could get my hands on about sailboat racing. Now there at least boats around me and the party was not over by the time I got there. In the results I was still deep.
I was approached by a couple of other Marblehead racers and they told me of a new rule that gave you a time allowance not based on a measurement but rather how you and other similar boats did in real time against each other. This was called PHRF, Performance Handicap Rating Formula. After each MORC race we would redo the results and I always did better under PHRF.
I joined this group and we got the race committees to give us a start and PHRF began. PHRF did kind of well. Last year there were about 60,000 PHRF certificates in North America and less than 500 of all other rules combined.
I have been on the PHRFNE rating committee since then. We grew to be the largest fleet in N America with about 1200 members. It helped that California broke up into several fleets.
In the beginning the handicap committee meet about every other week, in season, at one of our houses and talked ratings and signed certificates well into the night. With the event of e mail, we meet much less often. Also by the mid 1980’s we had rated most models of boats so we were just making individual differences and not as many new boat ratings.
The committee had a Chief Handicapper. He did most of the research and would recommend changes and penalties or credits based on changes to the boat. We also received appeals from members saying either their boat or a boat they race against is not correctly rated. The Chief Handicapper did have a lot of influence on what ratings were assigned. This created a very political appearance.
2 Years ago a much bigger effort was made by the committee to hear all changes, appeals, and new ratings by the committee and not just one person.
A vote from the 5 members was taken and the majority vote carried the decision. The reality was a much more democratic process with no one person in control. Even though this was the reality the appearance of a Chief Handicapper did not stop the feeling that one person was judge, jury, and executioner.
In 2016 we have eliminated the Chief Handicapper position. Again everything is done by the committee with no one person any different than another. Thanks to the internet, information on boats is easier to get. The committee will also be relying on the individual fleet handicapper for more information and input on her fleet’s boats.
We will have a handicap processor who reviews the certificates and if there are any changes or a new boat the committee will review and assign the number. This should have a big impact on being as unpolitical as possible.
When you have arbitrary system you are wide open to criticism. So you must be democratic and transparent. We believe we have made a big step in that direct.
Always remember if you are over early once in every 4 starts, you are still over early.
Bump's World - December 2015
December 22, 2015
PHRFNE 2016
Since there have been 2 or more sailboats in the same body of water, there has been yacht racing. There are 2 types of yacht racing. One design, where every effort is made to make the boats as similar as possible. The other is an attempt to give a time correction allowing that one boat is X amount of time faster than the other.There have been many formulas that try to measure a boat and its sails, therefore coming up with a time allowance to measure against other boats. The rules you might remember are IOR, IRC, IMS, ORC, etc. The most popular in numbers was IOR with about 2200 certificates in the early 1980s.
In 1977 I had just bought a C&C 25, "Banana Split”, it was yellow. Being the competitive guy I am, and having just moved to the yacht racing capital of the world, I decided to go racing. I was told by the honest yacht broker who sold me the boat that she was a proven winner.
I asked what do I need to do to race? I need to join MORC, Midget Ocean Racing Class. So I did, and they gave me a number, this was my rating. So I raced. I was coming in far behind. Sometimes the race committee asked me to take my own time, since they were tired of waiting for me. I sanded the bottom, practiced with my crew, bought new sails and read everything I could get my hands on about sailboat racing. Now there at least boats around me and the party was not over by the time I got there. In the results I was still deep.
I was approached by a couple of other Marblehead racers and they told me of a new rule that gave you a time allowance not based on a measurement but rather how you and other similar boats did in real time against each other. This was called PHRF, Performance Handicap Rating Formula. After each MORC race we would redo the results and I always did better under PHRF.
I joined this group and we got the race committees to give us a start and PHRF began. PHRF did kind of well. Last year there were about 60,000 PHRF certificates in North America and less than 500 of all other rules combined.
I have been on the PHRFNE rating committee since then. We grew to be the largest fleet in N America with about 1200 members. It helped that California broke up into several fleets.
In the beginning the handicap committee meet about every other week, in season, at one of our houses and talked ratings and signed certificates well into the night. With the event of e mail, we meet much less often. Also by the mid 1980’s we had rated most models of boats so we were just making individual differences and not as many new boat ratings.
The committee had a Chief Handicapper. He did most of the research and would recommend changes and penalties or credits based on changes to the boat. We also received appeals from members saying either their boat or a boat they race against is not correctly rated. The Chief Handicapper did have a lot of influence on what ratings were assigned. This created a very political appearance.
2 Years ago a much bigger effort was made by the committee to hear all changes, appeals, and new ratings by the committee and not just one person.
A vote from the 5 members was taken and the majority vote carried the decision. The reality was a much more democratic process with no one person in control. Even though this was the reality the appearance of a Chief Handicapper did not stop the feeling that one person was judge, jury, and executioner.
In 2016 we have eliminated the Chief Handicapper position. Again everything is done by the committee with no one person any different than another. Thanks to the internet, information on boats is easier to get. The committee will also be relying on the individual fleet handicapper for more information and input on her fleet’s boats.
We will have a handicap processor who reviews the certificates and if there are any changes or a new boat the committee will review and assign the number. This should have a big impact on being as unpolitical as possible.
When you have arbitrary system you are wide open to criticism. So you must be democratic and transparent. We believe we have made a big step in that direct.
Always remember if you are over early once in every 4 starts, you are still over early.
Please mail comments to me at Bump@newwaveyachts.com
Bump Wilcox